Cherubini: Symphony in D major (CD review)

Also, Medee, Faniska, Lodoiska overtures. Piero Bellugi, Orchestre Sinfonica di Sanremo. Naxos 8.557908.

If you are like me, you may think of Luigi Cherubini as an eighteenth-century Italian composer, whose major works were a Requiem, several masses, and a few operas, but who most folks know today mainly from the opera overtures. I found myself only half right: I got the music but not the date. In fact, Cherubini lived from 1760-1842, a contemporary not only of Mozart and Haydn but of Beethoven, Rossini, Schubert, and Schumann. Unlike these other gentlemen, however, Cherubini did not write four symphonies or nine symphonies or forty-one or a hundred-and-four. He wrote one: the Symphony in D major contained on this disc.

I mean, you'd think that if he were going to write only one symphony, he'd make it a lasting one, but, alas, it probably deserves the neglect it gets. Despite Cherubini having written his one-and-only symphony in 1816, long after Beethoven had revolutionized the nature of the symphony and the symphony orchestra and just a year before Beethoven premiered his Ninth Symphony, Cherubini's little Symphony in D major seems like a throwback to the middle of the previous century.

Its four movements show little spark, novelty, or invention, and even less material that one can remember. After a brief Largo section, conductor Piero Bellugi and the Orchestre Sinfonica de Sanremo help the opening Allegro appear cheerful and bouncy enough. Following that are two middle movements, a Larghetto and a Minuetto, of mediocre quality that probably no one could help. And then things conclude with the best segment, the Allegro assai, which finally injects a little life into the proceedings.

Nevertheless, the most striking characteristic of the whole work is that its movements get progressively shorter as the piece wears on. The first movement is twice as long as the second movement. The second movement is twice as long as the third movement. And the final movement is, well, almost the same length as the third movement but shorter by a few seconds, at least as performed by Maestro Bellugi and his players. The timings are 13:09, 7:31, 4:44, and 4:37 minutes respectively.

The best parts of the disc are, as we might expect, the three opera overtures from Medee, Faniska, and Lodoiska. They display all the brilliance, fervor, menace, and excitement that are missing from the Symphony.

Naxos's sound appears rather dull and flat until you turn up the sound to a goodly volume level, and then it takes on a little glitter of its own. Just don't expect a lot of transparency here, nor much orchestral depth or breadth.

Adapted from a review the author originally published in the $ensible Sound magazine.

JJP